There is not much of a plot: shoot the falling bombs before they hit the blue blocks (i.e., “cities”) at the bottom of the screen. It’s not exactly the “high concept” that Hollywood usually seeks, but Atari seems to think their vintage arcade game could make a captivating flick.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Atari is taking an initial look at bringing Missile Command, its 30-year-old arcade game franchise, to the big screen.
Missile Command was originally released in the arcades in 1980. The simplistic mechanics revolved around shooting incoming bombs before they reached one of six bases. If all six bases were destroyed, the game ended.
The game itself is highly simplistic, but the underlying concept is vast for artistic freedom. Plug in any theme about aliens or some other threat to Earth, and the Missile Command tie-in makes sense.
Anyone who has seen Super Mario Bros, Doom, or Tomb Raider knows that movies based on video games have a spotty track record. Creating a movie based on a game from 1980, that didn’t even have any characters to speak of, is highly unprecedented.
This is certainly one to keep an eye on.
